


Rebuilding

by PotterandPinkFloyd



Category: Jurassic World Trilogy (Movies)
Genre: Claire and Owen basically adopt Maisie, F/M, Post-Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, background Claire/Owen to start, don't read unless you've watched, i'll add more characters as i add chapters, little dino-saving family, maybe some sexy stuff i dunno yet, rated Mature for language and eventual violence, there are some spoilers, we'll see
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-25
Updated: 2018-07-02
Packaged: 2019-05-28 03:53:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15040121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PotterandPinkFloyd/pseuds/PotterandPinkFloyd
Summary: In the immediate aftermath of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, Owen, Claire, and Maisie set out together. Owen wants Blue back, Claire wants to save the remaining dinosaurs, and Maisie just wants a family. Maybe they can all get what they want.





	1. Where Do We Go From Here?

           They aren’t far from the bones of the cabin, and by extension Owen’s property, when the _Dimorphodons_ fly past. Maisie presses her face to the glass, watching with wide eyes as the car follows the curve of the road. Claire gives them a cursory glance, and Owen just tries to keep his eyes on the asphalt.

            It doesn’t matter what station they turn on the radio; even the ones that usually seem to be sans DJ are overrun with either their own newscasters or are borrowing broadcasts from sister stations. Absently Owen flips through channel after channel and it’s all more of the same – slightly panicked senators being interviewed by even more terrified hosts about what actions the government will take, speculation from scientists about how quickly the human death tolls will rise, and always the ever-present sound bites of Dr. Malcolm. Eventually Claire just leans over and shuts off the radio, letting silence fall over the occupants of the car.

            It’s nearing sunset when they pull up next to trailer. Owen glances into the rearview mirror and sees that Maisie has fallen asleep, her cheek smushed flat against the door, soft snores passing her lips. He smiles a little and puts his finger to his lips to let Claire know. She just nods, getting out of the car and softly clicking the door shut before going around to slowly open Maisie’s door. Owen catches her up and unbuckles her, pulling her into his arms and walking towards the trailer.

            “Do you think we should wake her up? Maybe she’s hungry,” he whispers to Claire, but she shakes her head.

            “No, just let her sleep. She’s been through so much,” she murmurs back, and together they tuck her into Owen’s bed in the trailer. Working quietly, they grab a loaf of bread, some bologna, cheese, mayonnaise, and a few beers before retreating outside the trailer again. In companionable silence they sit on the ground making sandwiches as the sun falls beyond the horizon. It’s Claire who finally breaks the silence.

            “We can’t keep her here, you know,” she says, staring blankly out at the dark trees, throwing the last of her second beer back.

            “What d’you mean? It’s not like she’s got anywhere else to go,” Owen retorts.

            Claire stares at him. “She’s a child, Owen. What do either of us know about children? She needs a real home, she needs a real _family_ , and-”

            “For all we know, Lockwood _was_ her only family,” Owen cuts her off. “You heard what that guy said; Maisie’s a clone. Clones don’t have family. We can’t let anyone know what she is, anyways, imagine what they’d try and do to her! Lock her up in a cage, or, or…” he drifts off, shaking his head.

            “We don’t know that. We need to bring her back.”

            “No, we need to take care of her!”

            “She’s not a raptor, Owen!” Claire explodes, finally letting all the fear and the pain from the last few days out. “She’s not Blue! You can’t just train her like a dog or a horse and expect her to listen and have that be enough! She’s a little girl and she needs a school and friends and a home!”

            Owen blinks a few times, then shakes his head and rubs his palms on his jeans. “Let’s just go to bed. We’re both tired, we can talk about this more in the morning.” He stands up, but Claire stays sitting.

            “C’mon, Claire. You know I didn’t mean it like that, about Maisie. I know she’s not Blue. Blue’s gone. Here, look, you can sleep on the couch, I’ll take the floor. I have a T-shirt you could borrow, and, uh, it’ll be just for tonight, anyways. That work for you?”

            She stays put. It’s then that Owen really sees her. Tattered, bloodied, muddied clothes, hair in tangles and knots, bags under her eyes, and that puncture wound from the _Indoraptor_. Jesus, how could he have forgotten about that?

            “You wanna take a shower? I actually have one of those way out here in the middle of nowhere, believe it or not.” He makes an attempt at lightheartedness, and that’s what finally gets her moving.

            “A shower sounds perfect,” Claire says tiredly.

            She showers for almost an hour, emerging finally from the tiny steamed-up room wearing a band tee and a spare pair of boxers for shorts. She’s limping slightly, and Owen pats the empty spot next to him on the couch.

            “Let’s take a look-see at that,” he mutters, kneeling down to get a closer look at the wound. It’s inflamed and starting to look a little red, but luckily there doesn’t seem to be any pus, or more obvious signs of infection. “This is gonna hurt,” he tells her, holding out a paper towel soaked in saline solution.

            Claire shrugs, but grips down a bit on the couch. Owen gently presses the towel to her leg, but other than a slight hiss through clenched teeth Claire is quiet. He adds a bit of antibiotic cream, carefully dabbing it on with the tips of his fingers, before bandaging it up. After quietly retrieving blankets and pillows for the both of them from his tiny room where Maisie still sleeps, they turn out the lights.

            “G’night, Claire,” he whispers from the floor.

            “Goodnight, Owen,” comes her soft reply from the couch.

 

 

            Owen wakes when the sunlight comes streaming through the windows onto his face. He’s on his side facing the wall, and he can hear Claire’s gentle breathing from behind him. Sometime during the night, she must have joined him on the floor; she’s now pressed close to his back, her forehead resting on a shoulder blade. Carefully, not wanting to disturb her, he wiggles to the side, leaving the blanket draped over Claire.

            He tiptoes to the bedroom door and gently taps on it. Maisie’s voice comes from inside, so he opens the door.

            “Heyyy, kid. You sleep okay?” he stage whispers, leaning against the doorframe so Maisie can peer past to see Claire, still motionless on the floor.

            Maisie nods. “Yes, thank you.”

            “How does some breakfast sound? I don’t think I’ve got anything here, but we could go into town, get you some new clothes and a big plate of pancakes.”

            Maisie nods again, this time enthusiastically.

            He brews some coffee, and it’s the smell of that which finally rouses Claire. She sits up awkwardly from the floor, giving a bit of a sheepish smile to the two of them. Once both she and Owen have a hot cup in hand, they all three pile back into the car, heading towards the city. Owen pops in a tape, eager to avoid the radio stories, and Maisie rolls down the window to let the window toss her hair around as she bops her head to the music.

            “Sorry about last night,” Owen finally says, gruffly, when it becomes clear that Claire isn’t going to say anything.

            “I’m…I’m sorry, too,” she sighs. “I’ve actually been thinking, we don’t even know if they know she exists. On a governmental level, I mean. For all we know, Lockwood could have kept her entire existence from the world. It wouldn’t have been hard, up in that mansion.”

            “Hey, kiddo?” Owen calls over the noise of the radio back to Maisie, looking at her in the rearview mirror. She looks up. “Did you ever go to school?”

            “No, Grandpa had me tutored at home.”

            “How about, um, did you ever go to the hospital, or the doctor’s office?”

            “No. If I was sick, Iris took care of me, or they called me a doctor.”

            Owen looks pointedly at Claire. She looks back, slightly exasperated. “Well, now we know that much. But I still don’t know what you expect us to do with her.”

            “We have to do something. Look, we can just take this on a day-by-day basis, yeah? Let’s just see how this goes.”

            He expects Claire to argue more, bring up the “she’s not a raptor” counterattack from last night, but instead she simply sighs and looks out the window. “I don’t have anywhere else to go right now,” she whispers, more to herself than to Owen.

            “Hey Maisie, d’you wanna stay here? With Claire and I?” he asks, louder again.

            Maisie smiles softly and nods.

 

 

            Late that night, when Claire is sure Owen and Maisie are asleep, she slips out the door of the trailer and into the front seat of the car, letting the door softly click shut behind her. She has to hear the stories; Owen refuses to listen to them, wants to turn a blind eye to the dinosaurs just like before, but Claire can’t just forget about them. She turns on the radio and sits back in the seat, closing her eyes.

            It’s as bad as she expected. “Just yesterday, an _Apatosaurus_ , estimated by officials to be about seventy feet in length, tore through Congaree National Park. Park rangers are not yet sure how many acres of land have been damaged…”

            She changes the station. “We have another caller, go ahead, caller five. What’s your name?”

            “Yeah, I have an opinion I’d like to share.  And it’s John.”

            “Okay, John, are you pro- or anti-re-extinction?”

            “Pro! I’ve been for it since the whole thing started; it’s an abomination. We all knew this damn idea was doomed from the beginning and look what happened! This is our punishment for trying to play God.”

            She flips the station again, and again, until she’s made a full revolution. It’s just more of the same, and worse. A _Stegosaurus_ gets into a water treatment facility. An _Allosaurus_ is terrorizing a cattle ranch. _Dimorphodons_ picking up people’s pets and carrying them away. And, of course, the _Mosasaurus_ swimming dangerously close to populated beaches, overturning fishing boats. Nobody was quite certain yet how that one had gotten out.

            Claire sighs, turns off the radio, and makes her way back to the trailer.

 

 

            In his dreams, Owen is back on Isla Nublar. He relieves in flashes the intensity of the heat radiating off the lava as it comes creeping towards him, the overwhelming fear as it nearly consumed him, the sick, aching feeling in his stomach as his girl, his Blue, was shot. He would have gone back to that godforsaken island a thousand times over for a chance at saving her. He would have boarded that charter plane all over again, even if he had known from the beginning that it would all have been a trap.

            He also experiences getting off the island in the enhanced Technicolor only nightmares can provide. He feels himself engulfed again by the cloud of ash rolling down the hill, scorching his skin and burning up his lungs. Then he’s in the water, far below him Claire and Franklin trapped in the Gyrosphere. He can’t get it open, they’re gasping for breath, Claire’s desperate face near the glass, and they’re drowning and he’s helpless.

            The last image he’s left with before he’s shaken awake is the view as the ship departed, the smoke swallowing the _Apatosaurus_ as it screamed for help. He’ll probably hear that cry as long as he lives.

            “Owen, wake up!” It’s Claire, shaking his shoulders. He opens his eyes, shuddering slightly, bathed in a cold sweat. Her hair hangs in his face. He loved it short, but she’s just as beautiful to him with it long. He hazards a smile up at her.

            “Sorry, did I wake you?” he asks, shooting for nonchalant and landing somewhere around obviously bullshitting.

            “I was already up. I had to go listen to the news.”

            “What are they saying?” He almost doesn’t want to ask, because he already knows the answer.

            “They’re saying…” she takes a breath. “They’re saying to kill them. They’re even thinking of sending in soldiers, to track them down and execute them.” Claire is choked up, and Owen doesn’t have to look to know she’s about to cry.

            A sharp pain constricts around his heart. “Blue,” he whispers. Claire grabs his hand and holds it tightly in her own, and they sit in silence together.

            “We have to do something,” Claire finally says. “How much land do you own?”

            “A few acres. Why?”

            “Can we buy more?”

            “Yeah, this is just a part of a much bigger area set aside for farmers or land developers or whatever. Why, though? What are you thinking, Claire?”

            A grin starts to spread across her face. “I have a couple of calls to make. We’re going to save them, Owen. We’re going to try and do what should have been done in the first place.”


	2. Where There's A Will, There's A Way

            They’re up the rest of the night, Claire making calls to various scientists, engineers, doctors, and other former members of the Dinosaur Protection Group – which was more or less dissolved after the dinosaurs were released into the states – while Owen gets in touch with the company he bought his land from. By the time they’ve finished, it’s well into the morning and they’re on their third pot of coffee.

            Looking exhausted but also happier than she has in days, Claire beams as Owen hands her another full mug of the steaming drink. “I’ve already got so many people on board with this, and they’ve all sworn to secrecy,” she tells him, staring out the trailer windows at the still-rising sun. “I worked with all of them for years; we can trust them to keep quiet about it. How far did you say your nearest neighbors are?”

            “Miles,” he reassures her, sitting next to her on the couch. “Look, Claire, this is wonderful and all, but, uh, have you given any thoughts to how we’re gonna bankroll this project?”

            She sheepishly gives him a sideways glance, a halfway-guilty smile spreading across her face. “I actually think money is going to be the least of our worries here.”

            “Well, c’mon, don’t be so secretive; share with the rest of the class.”

            “Before my organization was contacted by Lockwood, we had received pledges from quite a lot of different sources, like senators, animal rescue groups, rich independent donors, even a few celebrities. And we got to be pushy about it, too, so most of those pledges turned into actual money in a bank account,” she explains.

            “Pushy? You? No…” Owen interjects sarcastically, grinning at her. She shoves him in the shoulder and continues.

            “The project that ended up taking the dinosaurs off the island was entirely funded by Lockwood – transportation, manpower, everything. I wasn’t even asked about any money I had raised separately. So all of that money…”

            “Is still sitting in that bank account!” Owen lets out a hoot of excitement, jumping to his feet. “You’re brilliant, you know that?”

            They’re interrupted by Maisie slowly opening the door, peaking her head out to look at them.

            “Hey buddy, sorry if we woke you,” Owen says to her.

            Maisie shakes her head. “No, I was already awake. I kind of couldn’t help hearing what you were saying, though. Is it true? Are we going to save them?”

            “We’re going to do our best, sweetheart,” Claire promises her.

            “I want to help, too. It’s my fault they’re all out there, on their own…probably scared,” Maisie says sadly, a slightly stricken look on her face.

            “It’s not your fault at all, Mais. You just did what you thought was best, even if Claire and I couldn’t see it then.” Owen glances at Claire, who nods in agreement.

            “Well,” Owen says, clapping his hands together once and standing up, “today we should go get some groceries, stock up the house so we don’t have to be going out for food so often. I’ll even make dinner tonight; I can whip up some mean tacos.”

            “You can cook?” Claire says, half teasing and half serious.

            “Stereotype much?” Owen shoots back, pretending to be offended, but they both laugh.

 

 

            Sometime during the night Claire wakes up confused. She can’t remember what she was dreaming, only that it was loud and almost scary. She has a full-body, teeth-chattering shiver clenched tight around her spine, and she pulls the blankets more snugly around her body. Amidst her haze she wipes her hand across her forehead and when she pulls it away, it’s clammy and wet.

            “O-Owen?” she asks, his name having trouble slipping past her involuntarily clenching jaw. She sticks her foot out past the edge of the couch and nudges him. He doesn’t react, so she kicks him harder.

            “What, what? Whatsa matter?” he asks groggily, sitting up and rubbing his eyes.

            “I think,” Claire stutters out, her teeth making audible clacking noises as they strike again and again, “that I’m sick.”

            Owen shoves aside the blankets on his makeshift floor-bed and quickly flicks on the lights, pulling Claire’s own covers from between her clenching fingers amidst protests from her. “You’re running a fever, you can’t have blankets on,” he tells her, putting a hand to her forehead before instantly recoiling. She’s practically burning up.

            “I could probably fry an egg up on your forehead, get us some early breakfast,” he tries joking as he pulls the blankets from off her leg. Fears confirmed, he feels the blood seep out of his face, leaving a cold tingling feeling behind.

            Claire’s leg has begun to swell up around the _Indoraptor_ injury. In the span of a day, it’s gone from a deep but narrow, slightly reddened wound to the somehow larger, swollen, and bright red lesion in front of him. He goes to put his hand near it but stills; the heat radiating off the cut is even hotter than the fever from her head.

            She looks at him through slightly glazed eyes. “Is it bad?”

            “No, it’s not bad,” Owen replies quickly, but he can tell right away that she sees through his bullshit. “But we need to take you to the hospital.”

            “No!” Her sudden fire catches him off guard. “No hospital!”

            “And why the hell not?”

            “You know why, Owen.” She glares up at him. “If this gets out, and it will at a hospital, the media is going to be all over this. The fact that I managed to get hurt by one of them. It won’t matter to them that the dinosaur was a hybrid killer, and it won’t matter that it’s dead. All it will do is fuel this fire for dinosaur re-extinction and I’m never going to let that happen.”

            Owen takes a deep breath and nods. “Okay, yeah, you’re right. But you’re really sick, Claire, and I…I don’t know what to do.”

            Claire lays back again, closing her eyes and shivering. “Call up Zia.”

 

 

            By the time Zia Rodriquez arrives, the sun has almost risen, and Claire is laying with a cold washcloth over her face, still violently shivering. “Woah man. When the hell did this happen?” she asks Owen, lugging a large medical-style bag behind her through the door of the trailer.

            “That night in the Lockwood mansion. It was the _Indoraptor_ , that damn hybrid of Wu’s,” Owen explains, watching as Zia gets down onto her knees next to Claire. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but aren’t you…more of a dinosaur vet?”

            Zia shoots him a look both condescending and withering over her shoulder before turning back to her patient. “Paleoveterinarian actually, and thanks for the vote of confidence. When did her fever develop?”

            “Um, maybe four this morning? That’s when she woke me up, at least. It could have been earlier but not by much, not with the way she’s been shivering. What exactly do you have in there that can actually help people?”

            “That’s enough commentary from the peanut gallery. Go sit over there and stay out of my way,” Zia orders.

            For a while, Owen, surprisingly, does as he’s told, watching quietly as Zia unloads several ointments and bottles of pills, as well as what looks like a travel-sized sewing kit. When she pulls out a long, curved silver needle from the sewing kit, Owen gets to his feet and begins pacing.

            “Don’t be such a wuss, Grady. Go change out her towel or something; try and make yourself useful.”

            As Owen rinses out the now-hot washcloth in the sink under cold water, Maisie emerges from the bedroom. She skirts around the scene on the small couch and over to Owen. “What’s wrong?” she whispers.

            “Zia over there is just helping Claire. I don’t think you saw it, but that dinosaur back in the mansion’s museum hurt her a bit,” Owen says.

            “A bit?” echoes Maisie skeptically

            “Yeah, maybe more than a bit. But she’ll be fine.”

            At that, Claire lets out a little yelp, and Owen looks over his shoulder so fast he gives himself a little whiplash. Zia has strung the wicked-looking needle with thick black thread and begun sewing the puncture shut, sitting amongst a pile of bloodied bits of paper towel. Owen puts his arm around Maisie and tucks her close to his side, steering her out of the trailer and away from the scene on the couch. He tosses the wet washcloth to Zia on his way out the door and it lands in her bag, prompting a hiss of irritation from the working vet.

            Maisie and Owen sit outside, on the floor of the unfinished cabin, and spend some time trying to mimic the calls of the birds flitting around in the trees. “You’re really good at that,” Owen remarks, a bit surprised. “Where’d you learn to copy like that?”

            Maisie shrugs, flopping back on the floor with her hands tucked behind her head, watching the clouds pass above. “Just something I’ve always done. Is it not normal?”

            “It’s not _not_ normal…” He glances down at her, watching as she pretends to trace shapes in the clouds with her fingertip stretched above her. “It’s definitely special, though.”

            She smiles up at him, the same wistful little smile she has continued to give, when she smiles at all. Then it suddenly slips from her face.

            “Something wrong, kiddo?” Owen asks, dropping onto his back on the wooden floor next to her.

            “I just miss my grandpa. And Iris,” she says softly, turning her face away as a few small tears roll down her face.

            Owen, uncomfortable with emotion to begin with and especially with the sadness of a little kid, reaches out to awkwardly pat her on the shoulder. “I’m sorry, Maisie. But you can always talk about them, if you want.”

            Maisie sniffles and wipes her nose with the back of her hand, before giving him a sheepish smile. “Iris would have been so angry if she had seen me do that.”

            Owen laughs, and then Maisie starts laughing, and together they laugh louder and the birds in the trees fly away in alarm.

 

 

            Sometime later, Owen hazards peeking back into the trailer to see how Claire is doing. “Have you fixed her up yet, Doc?” he asks Zia, who has thankfully put away the long needle and its thread. He glances at Claire’s leg and sees that it has been properly bandaged, but that the swelling hasn’t gone down yet.

            “She’s stitched up fine now, and the wound’s been cleaned out well, but now we’ve got to get this fever to break. Can you make her some food so we can get some antibiotics in her system?”

            “Aye aye, cap’n,” Owen replies, and Zia sticks her tongue out at him.

            “You’re such an ass,” she mutters, finishing packing up her supplies.

            “I can throw together some chicken soup. D’you want some, too?” he asks, directing the question first to Zia, then to Maisie as she walks back into the trailer, letting the door slam shut behind her.

            They both nod, and while Owen begins shredding up cooked chicken and chopping carrots and celery, he explains to Zia the plan he and Claire have begun concocting.

            “I want in,” she says immediately, almost before he’s finished speaking.

            “Good, Claire’ll be glad to hear that,” he says, and he’s relieved he didn’t have to try and convince her.

            “What’s your first step?” Zia asks, making herself comfortable on the floor as the smell of soup begins to fill the trailer.

            “Claire says we have money covered, so we’re going to buy the rest of the land available around here. We’ll have to find some engineers, figure out how we’re going to keep them here. No, we’re not using cages,” he says quickly when he sees Zia about to protest.

            “And after that? Who’re you going to go for first? I’d say the carnivores, because they’re probably of the biggest concern to civilians, and they’re the most likely to be hunted down first. Plus it’ll be more difficult to figure out what we’re going to do about the bigger herbivores, like that _Apatosaurus_ running around. They’d be much harder for anyone to figure out how to kill, anyways,” Zia babbles, but she gives Owen a knowing look.

            “Oh, yeah, that sounds like a good idea,” he says off-handedly, trying his best to look the right level of interested but not too-much so.

            In spite of it, Zia gives him a grin.

            “C’mon, Grady. I don’t know you that well, but I know you’re gonna go after your raptor first.”

            “You’re right,” Owen agrees, handing out bowls of soup to Maisie and Zia before taking a seat next to Claire and nudging her awake to begin spoon-feeding her the broth. “As soon as Claire is better, we’re all going to go save Blue.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was so thrilled by the wonderful response the first chapter of "Rebuilding" received. I'm so excited that you're all so excited! The highlights of my days have been refreshing every once in a while, and seeing the hits, kudos, bookmarks, and especially the comments increase. I know this was a bit of a slow chapter, but I wanted to take some more time for plot building. I'm hoping the next chapter will be more action-packed for you guys.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first time writing for this fandom, but after seeing Fallen Kingdom yesterday I just couldn't get this idea out of my head. I intended for it to be a stand-alone single piece, but the more I wrote the more I realized I have more still to say about this idea. I know the general consensus is that Fallen Kingdom wasn't that great, but I honestly really enjoyed it and I hope you did, too.


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